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Ted Striker
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United States of America
Jan 1970
time: 21:36
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Even CNN seems to be fed up. Saying how Rumsfeld is "dancing" around questions.
quote:
Talks with Sunni Arabs
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the commander of U.S. forces in the region danced around questions about a report in the Sunday Times of London that U.S. officials were negotiating with insurgent leaders for an end to violence and a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal.
"I'm not sure that I would characterize it as a dialogue between U.S. officials and insurgents," Gen. John Abizaid, head of U.S. Central Command, said on CNN's "Late Edition."
"I would say that U.S. officials and Iraqi officials are looking for the right people in the Sunni community to talk to in order to ensure that the Sunni Arab community ... becomes part of the political process," Abizaid said.
"And clearly we know that the vast majority of the insurgents are from the Sunni Arab community."
Rumsfeld said U.S. officials are talking to "people all across the spectrum, insurgents and opponents, people kind of leaning that way, people in the middle, people leaning toward the government and then the government."
"The goal is to get everyone moving in the right direction towards the government," he told ABC News. "There's all kinds of talks going on, and that's a good thing."
The two men carried similar messages on Sunday talk shows -- that the United States would beat the insurgency, that the press is reporting only negative things about the war and that a timetable for withdrawal would be a mistake.
Abizaid said the insurgency would fail, twice calling U.S. forces "the shield behind which politics take place."
"This is not a quagmire," he said. "It is a marathon, and we're at about the 21st mile."
But Rumsfeld said the "insurgency could go on for any number of years. Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years."
"Coalition forces, foreign forces are not going to repress that insurgency," he told Fox News. "We're going to create an environment that the Iraqi people and the Iraqi security forces can win."
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http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast...main/index.html
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Ted Striker
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United States of America
Jan 1970
time: 21:36
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I agree with your Berzerker. 
There was an article in Time where they mentioned that there is a WAITING LIST for suicide bombers. There are too many recruits and not enough missions for them.
The terrorist in that article thought that the Americans would kill Saddam and then leave. But he says they were frustrated that they Americans stayed for so long.
I think that Iraq is still salvagable, but it's gonna cost. Those Iraqi security forces need trained and they need trained NOW. 170K or whatever it is isn't enough. That number needs to be 500,000, and that's just for a start. Get them out in the field, there's only so much you can train them on. Or, let them start working and then segment their training so they are working and training at the same time.
Last I heard there was still debate over whether to forgive some or Iraq's debts. And this is coming from US. We of all people need to forgive those debts. DUH.
We need to start working with people like Al-Sadr and the Sunnis. Supposedly this is happening. But dammit, it's way too late and not happening quickly enough. Like it or not, he owns certain neighborhoods in Baghdad and keeps the peace there. People look up to him.
If we had done the same thing in Afghanistan, with that, "you're with us or we're sending the Marines to kick your ass," crap, we would have gotten stuck in the same situation the Soviets were in there. But we played ball with the warlords becuase anything else would have meant a nightmare. Afghanistan isn't perfect but at least people aren't running around blowing up Iraqi civilians and our Coalition soldiers all the damn time.
Last edited by Ted Striker on 29-06-2005 at 10:07
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MichaeltheGreat
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
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mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:36
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quote:
Originally posted by Ted Striker
Get them out in the field, there's only so much you can train them on. Or, let them start working and then segment their training so they are working and training at the same time.
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Out in the field untrained (or less trained) and they'd FUBAR even worse. You can't blame them - urban combat/counterinsurgency ops takes ****-hot soldiers with high morale, solid equipment, individual initiative and an exceptional degree of cohesiveness. That takes time to build, and just throwing more meat into the grinder demoralizes them and encourages the enemy.
quote:
If we had done the same thing in Afghanistan, with that, "you're with us or we're sending the Marines to kick your ass," crap, we would have gotten stuck in the same situation the Soviets were in there. But we played ball with the warlords becuase anything else would have meant a nightmare. Afghanistan isn't perfect but at least people aren't running around blowing up Iraqi civilians and our Coalition soldiers all the damn time. |
If we'd done the same thing in Iraq as we've done in Afghanistan, Saddam would appear to be releasing random audiotapes, and Uday and Qusay would be unaccounted for. The Green Zone would be pretty safe, but it would be about the only place we operated, and the Kurds would essentially have an autonomous zone in the north while the Shiites ran the south and the central government had no authority (by force or otherwise) over anyone.
They're both FUBAR, they're just different species of FUBAR, one has spots and the other stripes.
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Ted Striker
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United States of America
Jan 1970
time: 21:36
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quote:
Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Out in the field untrained (or less trained) and they'd FUBAR even worse. You can't blame them - urban combat/counterinsurgency ops takes ****-hot soldiers with high morale, solid equipment, individual initiative and an exceptional degree of cohesiveness. That takes time to build, and just throwing more meat into the grinder demoralizes them and encourages the enemy. |
You mean like the US Army ? 
I would normally agree with you, but given the situation, there isn't much of choice left and the time was yesterday, we don't have the luxury of waiting.
You can rotate in individuals with the more experienced units, you wouldn't send out a wholly green unit by itself.
quote:
If we'd done the same thing in Iraq as we've done in Afghanistan, Saddam would appear to be releasing random audiotapes, and Uday and Qusay would be unaccounted for. The Green Zone would be pretty safe, but it would be about the only place we operated, and the Kurds would essentially have an autonomous zone in the north while the Shiites ran the south and the central government had no authority (by force or otherwise) over anyone.
They're both FUBAR, they're just different species of FUBAR, one has spots and the other stripes. |
I don't know about that. The Iraqi Army could have been kept on a leash as long as they played ball. Instead the whole thing was disbanded and now we got a thousands of angry young men who hate us and are full trained with no jobs and lots of time on their hands to cause trouble.
Keeping a small footprint in Afghanistan was important, but believe me, nobody is more pissed than I am that a larger force wasn't deployed to grab that ****er and find him. The efforts directed towards Iraq could have been used in Afghanistan. I almost wonder if the force sent to Afghanistan was intentionally left small in order to prepare for the invasion of Iraq.
Last edited by Ted Striker on 30-06-2005 at 09:18
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MichaeltheGreat
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
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mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:36
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quote:
Originally posted by Ted Striker
You mean like the US Army ?
I would normally agree with you, but given the situation, there isn't much of choice left and the time was yesterday, we don't have the luxury of waiting.
You can rotate in individuals with the more experienced units, you wouldn't send out a wholly green unit by itself.
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I was a proponent of higher troop levels from the outset, if you remember (as well as waiting for more favorable conditions/force levels to attack and preplanning more for occupation) The problem is there are too few experienced Iraqi units and too many green individuals. That balance will change, but it's going to be a slow process, and a lot of body parts to scrape up in the meantime.
quote:
Keeping a small footprint in Afghanistan was important, but believe me, nobody is more pissed than I am that a larger force wasn't deployed to grab that ****er and find him. The efforts directed towards Iraq could have been used in Afghanistan. I almost wonder if the force sent to Afghanistan was intentionally left small in order to prepare for the invasion of Iraq. |
Bingo on the latter, and **** the need for a small footprint. In the aftermath of 9/11, nobody was going to **** with us, and we should have dumpted the entire XVIII Airborne Corps in from Parachinar to the Khyber Pass and dared anybody (i.e. Musharraf) to stop us.
Using the NA/EA forces augmented by airpower and special forces was the most efficient approach, but a hammer is only as good as the anvil you drive the enemy against, and we drove Bin Laden and Omar against a mother****ing sponge, not an anvil.
We just needed to make clear to the Afghanis that we were there to take the heads of the al Qaeda leadership and the Taleban, and then they could have the country back with a few billion in aid.
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27-06-2005 13:59
perhaps? 
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